Community Media Spotlight: Tea, Toast, and Truth

This is the Final Episode in Season 2 of Rural Roots Rising! We go behind the scenes of Tea, Toast, and Truth and talk with Ashland High School’s Truth to Power Club about how they pair education and action through their podcast and community organizing campaigns. If you missed last month, be sure and check out that episode to hear a shortened version of their work, Seeing Homeless. 

The transcript of this episode will be available at ruralrootsrising.org. 

More on what you heard in this episode:

Tea, Toast, and Truth is a podcast created by Ashland High School’s Truth to Power Club. You can follow Truth to Power on Facebook and Instagram. The show is produced collaboratively and is part of the club’s broader efforts to tackle important issues such as racism, mental health, the housing crisis and more.

This episode features hosts and producers Izabella Cantu, Isadora Millay, and Anya Moore discussing their response to the murder of Aidan Ellison, a Black teenager who was killed by a white man in Ashland last November. Shortly after Aidan's murder, Southern Oregon Black Leaders, Activists, and Community Coalition's leadership team pointed out that “the Black community in Ashland is less than 2% of the total population, but now makes up 100% of the homicide victims in our town.” Since then, Truth to Power organized multiple workshops on anti-racism, started work on a podcast episode and are planning a mural on Ashland Highschool to celebrate Ashland Highschool graduates who are Black Indigenous and People of Color. The mural will include Aidan Ellison and Michelle Alexander, author of the book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration, in the Age of Colorblindness.

You can listen to full episodes of Tea, Toast, and Truth on Spotify or Anchor FM.

Do you know a rural media maker we should connect with? Did Truth to Power’s work inspire you to take action on the issues that matter most in your community? Head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project and how you can get involved or reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org.

We featured music from The Road Sodas, Junior 85, and Ben Von Wildenhaus.

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

In our second season of Rural Roots Rising, we’ve been on a state-wide mission to explore community-based, intergenerational, collaborative, rural media. Join us this month as we feature Tea, Toast, and Truth, a podcast created by Ashland High School’s Truth to Power Club. This podcast is a great example of everyday people using DIY media to amplify local voices and create community-driven change.  

Rural Roots Rising is both a podcast and a radio show airing on 20 community radio stations, and it’s also an ongoing experiment in building up our media skills across rural Oregon. We’re halfway through our second season, where we’re digging deep into how rural media makers do what they do. This episode features the work of creative high school students who are willing to explore complex issues in their community, all while teaching themselves how to create a podcast for the first time! 

We’re showcasing their second episode, “Seeing Homeless.” They describe the episode as one focusing “on the struggles and biases that surround the homeless crisis.” Truth to Power interviews members of the homeless community, home free and homeless rights activists, and the Ashland Chief of Police, and ask community members to take on an active role as an ally for the unhoused community.  

Download this episode’s transcript at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

Tea, Toast, and Truth is a podcast created by Ashland High School’s Truth to Power Club. The show is produced collaboratively and uplifts diverse voices and offers a teen point of view.

This episode is part one of a two-part series highlighting the Tea, Toast, and Truth podcast and features hosts and producers Izabella Cantu, Isadora Millay, and Anya Moore. They interview housing rights activists and many voices from the unhoused community, along with Ashland Chief of Police Tighe O’Meara. Together they touch on the criminalization of the unhoused community and the barriers to access many people face. 

You can listen to full episodes of Tea, Toast, and Truth on Spotify or Anchor FM. 

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media and building stronger communities in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project and how you can get involved or reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org.

We featured music from Daniel Birch and The Road Sodas!

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

This month’s episode continues our community media spotlight series with a behind-the-scenes interview with KPOV 88.9 FM, High Desert Community Radio station manager Bruce Morris. This episode is the second in a two-part profile of KPOV and features Bruce discussing KPOV’s early history and the role of local stations in community organizing. Bruce also shares firsthand insight on both the future of radio and the ways that community organizers can and should partner with their local stations. If you haven’t already heard it, we recommend listening to part one, Community Media Spotlight: KPOV & The Point, first.

Find out when your local radio station is playing Behind the Scenes with KPOV & The Point at ruralrootsrising.org! 

This episode’s transcript will be available at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

ROP Director Jess Campbell interviews KPOV’s station manager Bruce Morris and together they explore the role of community stations in providing credible information via local voices, the longevity and sustainability of radio waves and audio-based programming, and local radio as a resource for community organizers.

You can listen to full episodes of The Point at kpov.org. To learn more about Bruce’s organizing work in Deschutes County historically, listen to “Building Community Power” from Season 1 of Rural Roots Rising. You can check out more episodes of Rural Roots Rising at ruralrootsrising.org.

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media and building stronger communities in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project and how you can get involved or reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org.

We featured music from Deef, Monk Turner, and The Road Sodas!

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

This month’s episode continues our community media spotlight series by highlighting KPOV & The Point, a daily radio show hosted by a rotating cast of hosts at KPOV 88.9 FM, High Desert Community Radio. This episode is part one of a two-part series! In this first episode, you will hear how The Point and KPOV support and resource community organizing in Central Oregon. In our next episode, we’ll go behind the scenes with one of The Point’s hosts, KPOV Station Manager, and community organizer Bruce Morris! 

Find out when your local radio station is playing Community Media Spotlight: KPOV & The Point at ruralrootsrising.org! 

This episode’s transcript will be available at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

This episode is part one of a two-part series focused on KPOV & The Point. This month’s episode demonstrates how community radio stations keep our communities safer, informed, and engaged through COVID-19, paramilitary movements, and beyond. 

First, we hear Bruce Morris interview and brainstorm with Janet Sarai Llerandi, Founder and Executive Director of Mecca Bend, in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and was obviously disproportionately impacting Central Oregon’s communities of color. Mecca Bend is an online directory assistance program that enables the Latinx Community of Central Oregon to find the necessary resources for work support programs, family assistance, education, housing, local events, and much more.

Then we hear an episode from The Point from 2018 where Bruce interviewed Jess Campbell, Rural Organizing Project’s Executive Director, about the growing threats of white nationalist and paramilitary movements. To learn more about paramilitary movements and how rural Oregonians have successfully organized to keep their communities safe in the face of overt paramilitary violence, check out Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement.

You can listen to full episodes of The Point at kpov.org. To learn more about Bruce’s organizing work in Deschutes County historically, listen to “Building Community Power” from Season 1 of Rural Roots Rising. You can check out more episodes of Rural Roots Rising at ruralrootsrising.org.

If Janet’s stories about the lack of internet access in Central Oregon resonated with you, check out the Roadmap to a Thriving Rural Oregon. Rural community leaders and organizers are working together across Oregon to increase reliable and affordable internet access for rural communities. Learn more at rop.org/roadmap!

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media and building stronger communities in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project and how you can get involved or reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org.

We featured music from Ben von Wildenhaus and The Road Sodas!

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

Last month we introduced LaNicia Duke and her call-in program Rural Race Talks on Coast Community Radio. We recommend listening to Community Media Spotlight: Rural Race Talks first. This month’s episode, Behind the Scenes with Rural Race Talks, explores the power of learning in public with LaNicia and discusses how her radio show is an extension of her organizing. 

One lesson from this episode is that the small-town reality that everyone knows everyone means that the transformations made possible through rural organizing and media-making can be shared in real-time.

Histories of racism in rural places are also shared histories, and reckoning with, healing from, and rebuilding requires us to have these conversations and grapple together with how to move forward. LaNicia knows that process can't happen in isolation and Rural Race Talks is one way of creating a space for that work on the air. 

Download this episode’s transcript at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

Rural Race Talks is a live call-in radio show hosted by LaNicia Duke on Coast Community Radio carving out space to grapple with our unique legacy of systemic racism and what that means for our present in honest and sometimes messy ways. The show comes at these conversations from multiple angles–everything from how we can begin to heal from our collective, social, and generational traumas to what 2020 taught us about race. 

LaNicia is a self-identified “brown-skinned girl” and community organizer in Tillamook County, which is nearly 94% white. She considers the radio show an extension of her organizing and the real-life conversations she has off the air with her friends and neighbors. Check out full episodes of her show at coastradio.org. 

This episode has also created unexpected opportunities for collaboration and connection. In February, as we produced this episode, LaNicia also interviewed Hannah Harrod, an organizer at ROP and this episode’s host, as part of a Rural Race Talks episode. Listen to that episode in the Coast Community Radio archives.

To learn more about LaNicia’s organizing work in Tillamook County and beyond, visit laniciaduke.com. In this episode, LaNicia shared her work as a chef through Coastal Soul and about the power of food to bring people together. We also discussed her motivations to co-create the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day events in Tillamook County which you can read more about in the Tillamook Headlight Herald. 

Interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media or building power in your area? Learn more about Rural Organizing Project at rop.org or reach out at info@ruralrootsrising.org. 

We featured music from The Road Sodas, The Library Ann’s, PC-One, and the Staple Singers.

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

Rural Roots Rising is both a podcast and a radio show airing on 19 community radio stations, and it’s also an ongoing experiment in building up our media skills across rural Oregon. In Season 2 we are amplifying rural radio shows and digging into how they do what they do in the hopes of building up our collective rural media making abilities and supporting the work of the incredible community radio stations we partner with. In this month’s episode, we tune in to Rural Race Talks from Coast Community Radio for our first ever Community Media Spotlight. 

We’re excited to feature Rural Race Talks over 2 episodes! This month’s episode includes sections of LaNicia’s show, particularly her episode from November 4th, 2020, where she models what it looks like to make space on the airwaves for meeting people where they’re at. Next month, we’ll go behind the scenes to learn more about LaNicia’s organizing and the history of her show.

Find out when your local radio station is playing Community Media Spotlight: Rural Race Talks  at ruralrootsrising.org! 

Download this episode’s transcript at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

Rural Race Talks is a live call-in radio show hosted by LaNicia Duke that is carving out space for rural Oregonians to grapple with our unique legacy of systemic racism and what that means for our present in ways that are honest and sometimes messy. The show comes at these conversations from multiple angles--everything from how we can begin to heal from our collective, social, and generational traumas to what 2020 has taught us about race. LaNicia is a self-identified “brown-skinned girl” and community organizer in Tillamook County, a county that is nearly 94% white. She considers the radio show an extension of her organizing and the real-life conversations she is having off the air with her friends and neighbors up and down the coast. You can listen to full episodes of Rural Race Talks at coastradio.org. You can also check out more episodes of Rural Roots Rising at ruralrootsrising.org. 

To learn more about LaNicia’s organizing work in Tillamook County, go to ruralracetalks.com and love-coalition.org

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media or building power in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project and how you can get involved or reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org

Did you like the music in this episode? We featured The Library Anns, Junior 85 and Aretha Franklin.

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

For the last year, we’ve been producing monthly episodes of Rural Roots Rising to share stories of courageous and creative organizing across rural Oregon. But why? To get us rolling on our second season, we pulled back the curtain to share what inspired this show, and how the process of making it has changed our organizing. In this month’s episode, Behind the Scenes with ROP, we dig in with Rural Organizing Project staff members who trace the origins of our foray into audio production, starting with radio relationships dating back decades. Beyond sharing stories from across the network, one of the main goals of Rural Roots Rising is to be a resource for rural communities looking to create their own media. When we decided to figure out how to make this podcast, we wanted to make sure we were learning in public by sharing out the skills we’re honing and helping build resources that people around the state can pull from and adapt. 

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are making media or building power in your area, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project (ROP) and how you can get involved.

Find out when your local radio station is playing Behind the Scenes with ROP at ruralrootsrising.org! 

Download this episode’s transcript at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

This episode references several episodes from Season 1, including Community Radio: Tune In, Speak Out; and It Takes All of Us. You can find more episodes of Rural Roots Rising at ruralrootsrising.org

We also shared about the public service announcements and radio ads that we have been creating alongside this radio show. You can find all of this content on Google Drive here.

If you’re a rural media creator and would like to partner with us in sharing a story from your community, reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org

Did you like the music in this episode? We featured The Road Sodas, Jon Watts, and Junior 85.

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

https://vurbl.com/station/925Ozy49kvK/

Over a year ago, when ROP committed to making 13 monthly episodes to share organizing stories from across rural Oregon, we had no idea what 2020 would hold! Hindsight 2020: Telling Rural Stories features Monica Pearson with North Coast Progressive Action in Clatsop County, Rita Schenkelberg, a new city councilor-elect in Deschutes County, Brenda Flores with Raíces in Umatilla County, and Kate Orazem, ROP’s new archivist! They share stories of election organizing in their towns and the importance of both celebration and reflection in sustaining and growing our work, especially in the hardest moments.

If you are interested in connecting with other rural Oregonians who are building power in your area, or sharing your own rural stories to be featured on our upcoming season, head to www.rop.org to learn more about Rural Organizing Project (ROP) and how you can get involved or reach out to us at office@rop.org! 

Find out when your local radio station is playing Hindsight 2020: Telling Rural Stories at ruralrootsrising.org! 

Download this episode’s transcript at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you heard in this episode:

Monica and Brenda were both featured in our first episode of the season, Anyone Can Be An Organizer, and we checked back in with them to hear about their election organizing and what’s changed for their work over the past year. You can watch one of North Coast Progressive Action's election Tik Toks here, featuring group members in T-rex and pumpkin costumes.  Since we last talked with Brenda, Raíces has been fundraising and distributing money to people struggling to make ends meet through the recession. They also distributed 500 newsprint STAND Guides in English and Spanish at mask distribution events in their area.  In Deschutes County, Bend elected 4 new city councilors including Rita Schenkelberg, Bend’s first person of color and openly queer person elected to the city council. Follow Rita on her website or on Facebook. 

The last segment of this episode is a conversation between two members of the ROP staff team: Meredith and Kate. Meredith Martin-Moats has been working behind the scenes on Rural Roots Rising since day one, editing, producing, and teaching the rest of us how to make quality radio. She sat down with Kate Orazem, ROP’s new archivist. Do you love pulling stories out of saved scraps of years past? Do you want to know what organizing looked like in your county in the mid-1990s? Reach out to Kate at kate@rop.org! She is really excited to get to know people across the network!

Did you like the music in this episode? We featured The Road Sodas, Josh Woodward, Scanglobe, Robin Allender and Yacht. 

As rumors fly about who can and can’t vote by mail, and threats to a fair election escalate, rural Oregonians are sharing paper and digital STAND Election guides with their neighbors to offer clear information about how people who are displaced by the fires or who were wrongfully evicted can still vote by mail, are leading car caravans to safely drop off ballots, and surveying their local candidates! On our special 2020 election edition of Rural Roots Rising, you’ll hear from rural Oregonians about what’s at stake on Oregon’s statewide ballot measures, as well as ways to take action to encourage electoral change in your community.

If this episode inspires you to take action for democracy, we have a Defend Democracy toolkit that you can find at rop.org/democracy. To access more shareable election resources in both English and Spanish including the public service announcements sprinkled throughout this episode, go to rop.org/STAND.

Download this episode’s transcription at RuralRootsRising.org.

Blackberries and Ballot Measuresfeatures a conversation about how the ballot measures will affect rural Oregonians between ROP organizer Hannah Harrod, Pam Reese, an ROP board member and organizer based in Echo, Oregon, and Keyen Singer, a Rural Organizing Fellow and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation based in Mission, Oregon. 

We also highlight Leslie Rubenstein and Cathy Bellavita from the Blackberry Pie Society in Cottage Grove. If you’re inspired by their work sending candidates running for all state and local offices a survey to respond to in order to earn their endorsement, we can help you get involved too! Reach out to us at info@ruralrootsrising.org to share your thoughts, and get support for your organizing.

Did you like the music in this episode? We featured music from The Road Sodas, Ryan Cullinane, and Ketsaa.

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!

As rural Oregonians, we’re not new to taking care of each other in a crisis. In the midst of the fear and grief, we’re returning this month to the story of thousands of committed people who joined together across county lines and faiths. By bringing their skills and networks together, opening the doors of their religious meeting places for shelter, and pooling resources, they successfully ended a human rights crisis in rural Oregon.

It (Still) Takes All of Us, features a story from Yamhill County about the power of interfaith organizing and the successes that are possible when hundreds of people join together in a moment of crisis. This month, we follow the story of Navneet Kaur, who took action in support of asylum seekers in rural Yamhill County with her Sikh community, Innovation Law Lab, and ICE Out of Sheridan. Navneet speaks about the community mobilization that successfully pressured ICE to release people from detention. 

Download this episode’s transcription at ruralrootsrising.org.

More on what you hear in this episode:

When she found out that people seeking asylum from across the world had been separated from their children at the US-Mexico border and sent by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) Sheridan Navneet drove directly to the prison. While showing up alone didn’t work so well, she quickly began doing interfaith organizing with her temple, Dasmesh Darbar Sikh Temple and coordinating with lawyers from Innovation Law Lab to support people in winning their right to asylum, and forcing ICE to release everyone within six months.

Their work did not end with the release of those detained in FCI Sheridan though. Navneet helped form the Respite Network with ICE Out of Sheridan and communities of faith across the Willamette Valley and organized over 60 volunteers into the Welcome Team. Together they picked people up when they were released from detention and drove them to temples and churches to stay for the night and supported folks as they continued on their journeys and reunited with family and friends across the United States.

Do you want to form a group in your community? Check out our resources for Fostering Strong and Healthy Groups, or email office@rop.org for support.

Did you like the music in this episode? Listen to more music by The Road Sodas, and the music platform Epidemic Sound!

Rural Roots Rising is a production of the Rural Organizing Project. Thank you for listening!